was uneven, and as she set off along the corridor, Case realized that
hundreds of small rugs and carpets had been put down at random. In some
places, they were six deep, the floor a soft patchwork of handwoven wool.
Molly paid little attention to the cabinets and their contents, which
irritated him. He had to satisfy himself with her disinterested glances, which
gave him fragments of pottery, antique weapons, a thing so densely studded
with rusted nails that it was unrecognizable, frayed sections of tapestry. . . .
“My Johnny, see, he was smart, real flash boy. Started out as a stash on
Memory Lane, chips in his head and people paid to hide data there. Had the
Yak after him, night I met him, and I did for their assassin. More luck than
anything else, but I did for him. And after that, it was tight and sweet,
Case.” Her lips barely moved. He felt her form the words; he didn’t need to
hear them spoken aloud. “We had a set-up with a squid, so we could read
the traces of everything he’d ever stored. Ran it all out on tape and started
twisting selected clients, ex-clients. I was bagman, muscle, watchdog. I was
real happy. You ever been happy, Case? He was my boy. We worked
together. Partners. I was maybe eight weeks out of the puppet house when I
met him. . . .” She paused, edged around a sharp turn, and continued. More
of the glossy wooden cases, their sides a color that reminded him of
cockroach wings.
“Tight, sweet, just ticking along, we were. Like nobody could ever
touch us. I wasn’t going to let them. Yakuza, I guess, they still wanted
Johnny’s ass. ’Cause I’d killed their man. ’Cause Johnny’d burned them.
And the Yak, they can afford to move so fucking slow, man, they’ll wait
years and years. Give you a whole life, just so you’ll have more to lose
when they come and take it away. Patient like a spider. Zen spiders.
“I didn’t know that, then. Or if I did, I figured it didn’t apply to us.
Like when you’re young, you figure you’re unique. I was young. Then they
came, when we were thinking we maybe had enough to be able to quit,
pack it in, go to Europe maybe. Not that either of us knew what we’d do
there, with nothing to do. But we were living fat, Swiss orbital accounts and
a crib full of toys and furniture. Takes the edge off your game.
“So that first one they’d sent, he’d been hot. Reflexes like you never
saw, implants, enough style for ten ordinary hoods. But the second one, he
was, I dunno, like a monk. Cloned. Stone killer from the cells on up. Had it
in him, death, this silence, he gave it off in a cloud. . . .” Her voice trailed
off as the corridor split, identical stairwells descending. She took the left.